Week of Prayer

With close to 8,900 parishioners registered in the parish, All Saints in Knoxville has found a way to capture the sense of togetherness and purpose that marked its beginnings 21 years ago. “So many people are new, coming from other places,” said Father Michael Woods, pastor. “The tendency is to become part of the crowd, hoping for some sense of support and belonging. And we have a growing Hispanic community within our parish. Of course the common ground is Eucharist, but with crowds like ours it is easy to feel alone, even at Eucharist. Those who are established tend to stick to those they know and leave the work of creating the sense of belonging to a few.” All Saints continues to involve all parishioners in that work: to “have as many people as possible do something valuable and specific for the parish that all can do in a short period of time and then come together to celebrate what we have accomplished.” The “valuable and specific” plan decided upon was for members to pray for the parish. For the last month parishioners have been encouraged to donate an hour of prayer for All Saints. The week of Aug. 16th through 22nd has been set aside for that purpose. Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament will be continuous, 24 hours a day for seven days. “It’s amazing,” said Father Woods, “More than 1,200 people participated last year. I expect more to do so this year. It seems God is blessing our efforts.” After the week of prayer, the parish will have only two Masses on the weekend of Aug. 22nd and 23rd, one at 5 p.m. Saturday and one large celebration at an outdoor Mass at 10 a.m. Sunday. The celebration’s theme is “All Saints Coming Together.” Over 2,000 parishioners attended last year’s outdoor Mass! More are expected this year. All have been encouraged to bring a covered dish for their family plus enough to feed five more people to eat after the Mass and “get a sense of the beauty of their large, diverse parish.”